I’ve read some of Dave Trott’s stuff in the past, and it always follows a vaguely similar formula. He has a very uniquewritingstyle in which he writes in short, repetitivesentences and where he basically shares some stories and then tells you what the moral is.

Here, the stories are all about thinking outside the box and finding opportunities where you might not have expected them. So for example, he uses a story about GermanU-boats in the First World War to show how by forging ahead with a plan that other people ridicule, you can potentially take people unawares and force them to totally rethink conventionalwisdom.

Really, it’s more of an inspirationalbook than a practicalhands-on guide, because it’s not going to just give you a list of steps to follow if you want to get things done. Rather, it’ll help you to think in a different way, and that in itself might be all you need to get an edge over the competition.

And the best thing is that while Dave Trott is an advertisingman, the ideas here can be applied just as easily to pretty much any form of creativity. It’s certainly given me a few ideas that I’ll apply to my writing.